Scrabulous replaced with Wordscraper by Indian creators (Lead)

New York, Aug 1 (IANS) Kolkata-based Agarwalla brothers have returned on Facebook with Wordscraper after Scrabulous, the popular online word game created by them, was taken off by the social networking site early this week in reaction to a lawsuit filed by Scrabble board-game maker Hasbro. Scrabulous was one of the most popular applications on Facebook, but Hasbro, which owns the Scrabble rights in the US and Canada, complained that the online game infringed on its copyright.

Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla have now created Wordscraper to make it look different from Scrabble.

While Scrabulous used the same rules and point system as Scrabble and featured a board with a similar look, the new word game has a different point system and a board that uses circles instead of squares and can be customised.

Before it was taken down, Scrabulous had over 500,000 users worldwide playing on a daily basis, according to its Facebook page.

Wordscraper too is receiving a positive response as gauged by early user reviews available on the application’s Facebok page. The new game already had about 3,500 users.

“Thanks guys, I knew that you wouldn’t leave us scrabulous addicts stranded for long!” read one typical comment at a page for the new game on Facebook.

It is unclear at this stage if Wordscraper, too, will face legal action.

In UK, where both Scrabulous and Wordscraper were available on Facebook, Scrabble rights are owned by Mattel, which too has started legal action against Scrabulous.

Meanwhile, Hasbro has launched its own official Scrabble Facebook game.